Facebook Ads are making their mark among businesses in the Kingdom thanks to the frequency of Thais' daily activity on Facebook.

Arrow Guo, head of small and medium-sized enterprises for Greater China and Southeast Asia, said Facebook Ads had more than 1.5 million advertisers worldwide, while more than 30 million SMEs had Facebook pages.

In Thailand, Facebook has 27 million active users monthly, around 90 per cent of them using mobile devices. Of all online platforms, Thais spend the most time on Facebook. According to a study by global researcher TNS, Thais now spend an average of 2 hours and 35 minutes on Facebook every day.

Guo said this had resulted in 57 per cent of users discovering a new brand, product, or service on Facebook.

"Thais' buying decisions are strongly influenced by what they see on Facebook. They will source recommendations from people they trust, friends and peers, and seek product information when looking for new products or before making a purchase decision from a brand's page. This insight has become a defining part of SMEs' marketing strategy," he said.

Paul Srivorakul, group chief executive officer of aCommerce, an e-commerce service provider, said its digital agency service was now spending almost 10 million baht per month from its 50 customers on Facebook Ads.

"Social platforms, especially Facebook, are now playing an important role in driving the trend of what is called 'online-to-offline' e-commerce. This actually means a social platform can help an SME easily set up its online presence with a Facebook page, then also help it reach its target customers with Facebook Ads. Social platforms' online ads drive offline purchases successfully as well." He added that the top four products purchased online were travel, fashions, electronics, and "lifestyle" gadgets.

"Thais rank third in terms of using e-commerce [on any kind of online platform] to sell products online, after Americans and Indians," Paul said.

Kamolwan Korphaisarn, general manager for digital marketing at OfficeMate, who oversees Central Department Store's e-commerce site, Central.co.th, said the company spent 10 per cent of its online revenue on digital marketing, and around 40 per cent of this budget was spent on Facebook Ads. The rest is spent on Google Display Network and Google Search.

"We use our offline customer database with Facebook Ads' tools to reach target customers effectively. It could help us achieve more sales revenue. Moreover, Facebook Ads' conversion-rate tracking can help us evaluate our campaigns and then preparing better ones from the lessons learned from the previous one," Kamolwan said.

Wirathip Thanapisitikul, founder of Pomelo Fashion, an online fashion shopping mall that started up just seven months ago, said Facebook was a vital platform for start-up businesses. The company uses its Facebook page to inform and to engage with the online community, while using Facebook Ads to reach potential target customers and draw them back to its website.

"Since we are a purely online business, we use only online marketing. Seventy-five per cent of our total marketing [budget] is spent on Facebook Ads, while the rest is used for AdWords and re-marketing. In the seven months since we were established, our business has been growing by between 20 and 30 per cent per month. With the powerful tools of Facebook Ads, in some of our campaigns, we could have a return of investment at four times," Wirathip said.